1. Field
The inventive concept relates to a distributed antenna system, and more particularly, to a distributed antenna system capable of facilitating manager's operation, reducing installation and operation costs, and extending coverage.
2. Description of Related Art
As the use of mobile communication services is rapidly increased with the development of mobile communication technology, users desire to stably receive communication services without any temporal and spatial limitations. However, as shadow areas are formed due to limitations including limited outputs of base stations, positions and peripheral topography of the base stations, etc., there is a problem in that providers have difficulty in providing users with smooth communication services. A distributed antenna system (DAS) is used as a plan for solving this problem.
The DAS is installed in areas in which radio waves are not received or are weakly received, such as interiors of buildings, basements of buildings, subways, tunnels, apartment complexes, and stadiums, to provide communication services up to shadow areas that signals of base stations hardly reach, thereby extending the coverage of the base stations. The DAS is configured with a headend device communicatively connected to base stations and at least one remote device which is connected to the headend device through an optical transport medium and communicatively connected to user terminals.
Recently, the DAS has employed a neutral host architecture to integrally support various services (e.g., multi-band services, multi-carrier services, etc.) or services of a plurality of providers. As the design complexity of the headend device and the remote device in the DAS is increased due to the employment of the neutral host architecture, a manager has difficulty in quickly coping with a trouble, etc., which occurs during operation. In addition, it becomes more difficult to efficiently cope with alternation of providers, services, etc., due to a change in operational environment.
Meanwhile, the DAS necessarily ensure a broad coverage while satisfying requirements to reduce facilities and operation cost of providers, and it is required for the DAS to extend or change predetermined coverage, corresponding to a change in operational environment. In the DAS, coverage is generally ensured by disposing a headend device at a local site and disposing a plurality of remote devices at different remote sites. However, when the number of remote devices connected to the headend device is increased or the position of each remote device is changed so as to ensure a broad coverage and extend coverage, installation and operation costs are increased due to additional equipments, lines, etc., and therefore, it is difficult for the DAS to satisfy requirements to reduce providers' cost.